Soaring Poem by Christine Errett

You test the span of ten-hundred mortal breaths, patiently watching the world metamorphasize
Your offspring, adopted, you protect under a thousand emerald wings, though sons and daughters never know you as mother or father
Your breath brings life to those who feel the need to breathe, at your sleep, you molt, pondering the activities of future seasons
When you broke through your shell, you grew up slowly, filling the sky, wings upraised, singing into the heavens
Many of your brothers and sisters, you watched them tyrannically murdered at the hands of others, though you stand your ground
Feet firmly planted, you stand as stable as your countenance, you await the days of future suns in anticipation
Life-blood pulsing through your body, at times drained and consumed by parasites- still you wait
After millennia or so, perhaps, you've grown weary, your body bare, and your feathers thinning
And so you leave the realm of hawks, and falcons, and eagles, and - majestically, you lean, then you fall.